Hi, everyone! I am a little over a month gone from my own debut as a Supermom, and I’m glad to be getting back to the column. Please enjoy the first installment of a special Supermom column I like to call “Time Out!” Featured artwork courtesy of Dave Pantoja, @pixeldave1 on Twitter.

Earlier this month, Marvel released the “Villains of Hydra” variant covers for Secret Empire, showcasing “Hydra’s secret weapons in the war against the super heroes”. When it became widely known that this lineup included Magneto, the internet blew up.

Magneto’s origin story has established him as a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, and other storylines have inarguably shown that he nurses a deep hatred against Hydra leaders like Red Skull because of Hydra’s allegiance with the Nazi party.

Since Secret Empire is written by the same fellow that made Captain America a Hydra sleeper agent last summer, many are saying that beyond being a tasteless choice for the Secret Empire storyline, it is downright anti-semitic:

However, some people just don’t understand the hullabaloo. In an interview with TIME, Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort claimed that Cap’s storyline last June was a carefully planned arc, reflecting the “zeitgeist of 2016” (he seemed to really like the word zeitgeist). A later issue in the series reveal Cap to be brainwashed by cosmic forces, and some have pointed out that, similarly, the variant cover featuring Magneto may have very little to do with Secret Empire’s storyline. Vox columnist Alex Abad-Santos wrote: “People are already passing judgment on something they haven’t seen…because comic books are released by issue instead of volume, there an inclination to judge an entire story before it’s completed.”

This, and many arguments like it, seem to point to a faceless mass of internet people who prefer reacting in the moment without a complete picture of a situation. Based on the rate that debate died down around the Cap issue last year, there seems to be some strength to this implication.

But here’s where everyone needs a time-out (even the people saying calm down).

Yes, it’s true that Spencer and the creative team at Marvel have the freedom to make choices for these fictional characters and their stories, not only because AMERICA yadda yadda yadda, but because they constitute Intellectual Property and you get to do what you want with your property. Yes, it’s true that it is VERY easy to make misinformed assumptions about comics (especially Marvel or DC comic universes) more than other media because it’s harder to get complete context for plot points or details that people find objectionable.

However, I have to give weight to tumblr user Nicole wrote last week:

“When I made a post about the Cap thing a few months back, I was yelled at by a Holocaust denier and whined at by a white German who was “tired of being blamed” for history, as though history is not our responsibility, as though history is not always right beside us…the political climate has been harshly anti-Semitic lately. it’s been anti- a lot of things obviously. but my people’s cemeteries are being destroyed, my people’s places of worship and community are being threatened, I have seen more swastikas this year than I have in the past five, and Marvel just put their single most iconic Jewish character in line with their fictional Nazi order.”

Writer Nick Spencer took to Twitter complaining that “the Hydra=Nazi argument is so flawed to me”, implying that Hydra’s allegiance is to the potential to do the most evil at any given time, and not necessarily to a particular ideology (like Naziism). “They are very, very bad people, and unquestionably villains.” he wrote, “But Hydra’s goals, beliefs, and membership criteria simply aren’t the same.”

But as Nicole and others have pointed out, Spencer’s work, and the body of Marvel IP that exists outside of Spencer, does not exist in a vacuum. Despite claims like Brevoort’s and BleedingCool columnist Rich Johnston that the storyline was carefully planned and intended to reflect the current political climate, it’s clear that with respect to the Jewish community, more tasteful choices could have been made.

And as consumers of Marvel’s products, readers do have the right to use their purchasing power to give the company, the editors, and individual writers feedback on whether they approve of said choices. And they have the option to take to the social media channel of their choice to give that feedback more directly.

So hey, maybe that feedback would be easier for Spencer and Marvel to hear if it seemed more well-informed on the context of their creative choices… or if they didn’t subscribe to the belief that any press is good press. But on the other hand, take a moment to appreciate the other issues people are observing or dealing with directly before engaging in any unintentional tone-policing.